After surrendering the opening frame to his Balochistan rival 33/74, Yousuf stormed back with a brilliant break of 77, to level the scores 1-1.
He then won the next two frames with effortless ease and reserved his best for the final frame where he cleared the table with 140 points just failing to equal Saleh Mohammad’s Pakistan record of 144.
Yousuf potted 12 red balls with the black, two reds with the pink and one red with the yellow.
Former world number three but seeded fifth in the tournament Saleh Mohammad brushed aside Punjab’s Farhan Noor 4-1. His victory was dominated by breaks of 84 and 62.
The top seed Khurram Hussain Agha swept past NWFP’s Noman Awan 4-0 and the same could be said about Punjab’s wild card entry Abu Saim, who breezed past Larkana’s Muhammad Amin 4-0.
Defending and national champion Farhan Mirza from Punjab earned a walk-over against Nadir Khan from NWFP who failed to turn up for his match.
Three other players Inam-ur-Rehman from NWFP, Atif Mughal and Hassan Shuja from Punjab also failed to turn up for their matches on the opening day which allowed their respective opponents Arifullah, Raja Rashid and Vishan Gir to receive walk-overs.
Fourth seed Naveen Perwani, with fluent breaks of 51 and 60, emerged a 4-1 winner over Irfan Rasheed Khan, who started off well in the opening frame chalking up a break of 42.
However, sixth seed Imran Shehzad and eighth seed Shakeel Bhatti were made to sweat by Rambel Gul from NWFP and Danish Haroon. The two won by the identical 4-3 scorelines.
Seventh seed Atiq Latif Bux had a fine break of 80 in his 4-1 demolishing of Balochistan’s Naseer Khan 4-1.
Ahmer Shaikh, a talented cueist from Sindh swept past Khurram Khan 3-0, but the lad from Punjab was not giving up in a hurry. He fought back gamely to take the next two frames and claw his way back 2-3, before Ahmer getting his act together, won a very close sixth frame and match 55/52.
Following were the results:
Khurram Hussain Agha (Sindh) beat Noman Awan (NWFP) 4-1. Mohammad Yousuf (Sindh) bat Mustafa Hyder (Balochistan) 4-1. Naveen Perwani (Sindh) beat Irfan Rasheed Khan (Sindh) 4-1. Saleh Mohammad (NWFP) beat Farhan Noor (Punjab) 4-1. Imran Shehzad (Punjab) beat Rambel Gul (NWFP) 4-3. Atiq Latif Bux (Sindh) beat Naseer Khan (Balochistan) 4-1. Shakeel Bhatti (Sindh) beat Danish Haroon (Sindh) 4-3. Fahad Asif (Punjab) beat M. Faiq Malik (Punjab) 4-1. Ahmer Shaikh (Sindh) beat Khurram Khan (Punjab) 4-2. Amit Parwani (Sindh) beat Ahmed Bawany (Sindh) 4-1. Abu Saim (Punjab) beat Muhammad Amin (Sindh) 4-0. Minhas Malik (Sindh) beat Azeem Akhtar (Punjab) 4-1. Farhan Mirza (Punjab w/o Nadir Khan (NWFP). Raja Rashid (Punjab) w/o Atif Mughal (Punjab). Vishan Gir (Sindh) w/o Hassan Shuja (Punjab). Arifullah (NWFP) w/o Inam ur Rehman (NWFP).